hydraulic pump on PTO for front snow blower

[jeffgreef]

Oh great wise ones:

I'm researching what tractor to get, and want to end up with a snow blower up front. I'm looking at about 30hp and a 5 foot blower. Looks like one way to do this is get a FEL with skidsteer quick attach, then get a hydraulic blower with quick attach fittings. Problem is that tractors in the 30 hp range will not have enough hydraulic gpm to operate a snow blower. So, I'd have to put a hydraulic pump on the rear PTO and run lines up front.

How do you do this? Do you have to buy all the components separately (pump, reservoir, control block, lines) or are there standardized after market kits for doing this?

How much gpm would I need?

Thanks in advance, JG

 

[kennyd]

Both JD and Kubota offer snowblowers that are driven from the mid-PTO's for their machines. This would be a lot simpler than a hydraulic setup.

 

[J_J]

Oh great wise ones:

I'm researching what tractor to get, and want to end up with a snow blower up front. I'm looking at about 30hp and a 5 foot blower. Looks like one way to do this is get a FEL with skidsteer quick attach, then get a hydraulic blower with quick attach fittings. Problem is that tractors in the 30 hp range will not have enough hydraulic gpm to operate a snow blower. So, I'd have to put a hydraulic pump on the rear PTO and run lines up front.

How do you do this? Do you have to buy all the components separately (pump, reservoir, control block, lines) or are there standardized after market kits for doing this?

How much gpm would I need?

Thanks in advance, JG

You can not generate more HP than the tractor can develop using the hyd pump. Whatever hyd pump you use will take a certain HP to run it. By the time the pump fluid gets to the motor, you are already running at an 85 % less efficiency. If your tractor had 45 HP, then you could perhaps have enough HP from the engine to run the tractor and to run a large pump that would develop 30 Hp for the front snow blower. Even if you run it off the mid PTO, it will be less HP than the tractors rated HP, and that will dictate the size of the snowblower that will work well.

If a tractor had a dedicated pump for the PTO, say a 10 GPM pump, is will take about 21 HP at 3000 psi. Now, you will have to find a hyd motor that can use this fluid. The motor can only develop about 20 or less HP, and that is your limitation on the rpm and power of the snowblower. Things that go into figuring out the HP required for the snowblower, is the weight of the impellers, plus the weight of the snow packed in the wells of the impeller.

 

[jeffgreef]

KennyD- You are right about the Deere and Kubota blowers, they are simple and straightforward, running direct off a mid PTO. They are also very, very expensive. As well, with those, it's hard to switch from blower to loader. I want to be able to quickly switch from blower to loader to blade as snow conditions dictate. That's why I want to use a blower connected with the quick attach.

JJ- thanks for the good info on the hydraulic requirements. Obviously I need to get a tractor with enough hp to handle the blower. I assumed that I would find out what the gpm requirements are for the blower that I get, then get or design a pump system on the PTO to match those requirements. What I wanted to know is what i have to do to get those components. Are there complete kits for a PTO mounted pump, kits that have all the components, or do I have to buy separate components and build it myself?

 

[kennyd]

KennyD- You are right about the Deere and Kubota blowers, they are simple and straightforward, running direct off a mid PTO. They are also very, very expensive. As well, with those, it's hard to switch from blower to loader. I want to be able to quickly switch from blower to loader to blade as snow conditions dictate. That's why I want to use a blower connected with the quick attach.

Jeff, buy the time you set up a blower to run on your FEL, you will have just as much $$$ in it as a factory setup. There is NOTHING about hydraulics that's cheap-except advice here.

Switching is not as hard as you think...

 

[jeffgreef]

Hmmm... you're probably right... gotta save my pennies for a green or orange...

 

[Spudland_Dave]

You are right about the Deere and Kubota blowers, they are simple and straightforward, running direct off a mid PTO. They are also very, very expensive.

My 2 cents...
The Deere front blowers (specifically the 59" units) are a complete JOKE......Part of my thought process on that is the cost of said blowers with the size/build style of them. I'd prefer a font hydraulic unit not because of cost, but because of quality.

Kubota's blowers arent any cheaper, but they are actually nice blowers...

With Deere doing alot of business with RAD with their Frontier blowers and such, I bet its just a matter of time before we see a real front blower on a Deere.

 

[IceStationZebra]

The mid-mount PTO will always be more efficient than hydraulics.

- Belts are 95-98% efficient.
- single reduction gearbox: 98-99% efficient
- Gear pumps will be in the 80-92% range depending on quality, oil viscosity and speed. And remember that you have to take the hit twice, once for the pump and once for the motor. 92% x 92% = 85%
- Piston pumps, I think are about the same as the gear pump but I can't find my data right now.

ISZ

 

[ModMech]

I think the OP ment that the factory hydraulics on his tractor are too small to operate a blower. So, if he installed a rear PTO pump he could have greater volume than with the factory system, and that's true.

The engine doesn't care if it's 24 HP to the PTO (rear, mid or front) or to the hydraulics itself. But if the factory hydraulics can only supply 6 GPM at 2500 psi and you need 8+ GPM, well you need a different pump.

I'm in the same boat and have elected a rear PTO pump for a number of reasons.

I also agree with that statement that lots of stuff can be made to work, but at nearly the same cost as a finnished product (mid pto blower). Been there, done that.

 

[J_J]

The HP available is going to be the limiting factor on pump displacement. Once you select the pump, you have to make sure the engine can apply enough power to the pump so it can pump those GPM. The pressure and the GPM will determine the HP required to operate the pump effectively.

If you start with HP, then that is the limiting factor. That will determine the pressure, and GPM that can be used.

If you start with the pump, then you have to select the engine that can supply enough power/HP to run the pump.

If you get either one of those wrong, it could be costly.

If the pump is too big, the engine will stall.

If the pump is to little, the GPM will decrease, and the speed of the motor driven attachment will run at less than ideal, or run poorly and perhaps burn up the motor, trying to make it do what it was doing before.

You can always pump more fluid than is necessary, and release the extra back to the reservoir.

For instance on my Power-Trac hyd tiller, the PTO pump can supply 13 GPM, and that lets me select any GPM to the tiller to change the speed as I choose.

MY PT has 45 HP and runs 3 hyd pumps. That is enough HP to run all three pumps running at max all the time. However, I am not steering or lifting all the time, and I am not transporting the machine all the time, so I could probably never stall the engine, but if I jammed it in the ground and increased ground speed, the relief for the tiller circuit would just come on and relieve the situation until I slowed down, or raise the tller, or turned the tiller off.